28,677 research outputs found
Factoring Predicate Argument and Scope Semantics : underspecified Semantics with LTAG
In this paper we propose a compositional semantics for lexicalized tree-adjoining grammar (LTAG). Tree-local multicomponent derivations allow separation of the semantic contribution of a lexical item into one component contributing to the predicate argument structure and a second component contributing to scope semantics. Based on this idea a syntax-semantics interface is presented where the compositional semantics depends only on the derivation structure. It is shown that the derivation structure (and indirectly the locality of derivations) allows an appropriate amount of underspecification. This is illustrated by investigating underspecified representations for quantifier scope ambiguities and related phenomena such as adjunct scope and island constraints
A Processing Model for Free Word Order Languages
Like many verb-final languages, Germn displays considerable word-order
freedom: there is no syntactic constraint on the ordering of the nominal
arguments of a verb, as long as the verb remains in final position. This effect
is referred to as ``scrambling'', and is interpreted in transformational
frameworks as leftward movement of the arguments. Furthermore, arguments from
an embedded clause may move out of their clause; this effect is referred to as
``long-distance scrambling''. While scrambling has recently received
considerable attention in the syntactic literature, the status of long-distance
scrambling has only rarely been addressed. The reason for this is the
problematic status of the data: not only is long-distance scrambling highly
dependent on pragmatic context, it also is strongly subject to degradation due
to processing constraints. As in the case of center-embedding, it is not
immediately clear whether to assume that observed unacceptability of highly
complex sentences is due to grammatical restrictions, or whether we should
assume that the competence grammar does not place any restrictions on
scrambling (and that, therefore, all such sentences are in fact grammatical),
and the unacceptability of some (or most) of the grammatically possible word
orders is due to processing limitations. In this paper, we will argue for the
second view by presenting a processing model for German.Comment: 23 pages, uuencoded compressed ps file. In {\em Perspectives on
Sentence Processing}, C. Clifton, Jr., L. Frazier and K. Rayner, editors.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 199
Disambiguation of Super Parts of Speech (or Supertags): Almost Parsing
In a lexicalized grammar formalism such as Lexicalized Tree-Adjoining Grammar
(LTAG), each lexical item is associated with at least one elementary structure
(supertag) that localizes syntactic and semantic dependencies. Thus a parser
for a lexicalized grammar must search a large set of supertags to choose the
right ones to combine for the parse of the sentence. We present techniques for
disambiguating supertags using local information such as lexical preference and
local lexical dependencies. The similarity between LTAG and Dependency grammars
is exploited in the dependency model of supertag disambiguation. The
performance results for various models of supertag disambiguation such as
unigram, trigram and dependency-based models are presented.Comment: ps file. 8 page
- ā¦